Bradford City will always regret handing £2.5m Leeds United transfer flop second Valley Parade chance | OneFootball

Bradford City didn't learn from their mistakes in this scenario

Bradford City look to be enjoying a positive moment as a club over the past few years, with promotion from League Two and competitive performances in League One as signs of real improvement.

However, the Bantams have had to work their way out of a slump which occurred at the end of the 2010s, following their relegation down to the fourth-tier.

Bradford spent much of the decade on the rise, with their heroics in the 2013 EFL Cup well-documented, as they reached the final before going on to achieve promotion from League Two later that year.

Two play-off finishes followed in the next four years, but the Yorkshire outfit couldn’t make the next step-up to the Championship and eventually fell away from competing at the top of the third-tier.

After a sub-par 2017/18 campaign where Bradford had missed out on the top six for the first time in three years, they took a managerial gamble at the start of the next season following a poor beginning.

This decision proved to be fatal and set the club on course to their slow demise into League Two.

Bradford City didn’t learn from their mistakes with David Hopkin

Flashback to the start of the millennium and Bradford City had just retained their Premier League status by three points.

There was no time to waste as the Bantams began to prepare for the 2000/2001 campaign, desperate to avoid slipping into a relegation battle again.

In an attempt to bolster their squad, Bradford broke their then-transfer record by purchasing Leeds United’s David Hopkin for £2.5m.

There was hope that the midfielder would provide the necessary ingredients to push the Yorkshire outfit up the league having captained Leeds during his time at Elland Road, but that wasn’t the case.

Hopkin made just 11 league appearances for Bradford due to injury issues and therefore couldn’t prevent them from finishing bottom of the Premier League that season.

He was subsequently shipped off to Crystal Palace, before returning to Valley Parade as manager in 2018. Michael Collins had been sacked after an abysmal start to the season, with Hopkin appointed as the man to turn their fortunes around.

There was hope that he could leave a better legacy in the dugout than he did on the pitch, but the Scotsman failed severely in that task.

Hopkin achieved just a single victory in his first 11 matches and admitted that the task at hand was much harder than he originally feared, with a six-match losing streak leaving them rooted to the foot of the table in November.

Only managing seven wins in 35 matches wasn’t good enough and by February 2019, the writing was on the wall for Hopkin.

Supporters were beginning to genuinely fear the prospect of relegation to League Two and the former midfielder subsequently resigned.

Bradford eventually finished that season bottom of the table and were relegated to the fourth-tier, where they would remain until their recent promotion in 2025.

Bradford City took their time to find a successful manager combination

Following Hopkin’s exit, Bradford City brought in Gary Bowyer, who appeared to be failing to fight for promotion in League Two and was let go as a result.

Stuart McCall, Mark Trueman and Derek Adams all tried their hand at turning the Bantams’ fortunes around, but couldn’t impress enough during their respective periods in charge and were all replaced.

Mark Hughes was given a longer shot at trying to get Bradford back into League One and appeared to be on the right track after finishing sixth in the 2022/23 fourth-tier standings. However, a play-off semi-final defeat against Carlisle United scuppered any plans of promotion.

Hughes was dismissed the following season and in came Graham Alexander, who finally turned out be the man who could take Bradford back up to League One.

After finishing shy of the top seven in 2024, automatic promotion was on the cards for the Bantams’ during Alexander’s second season in charge, bringing an end to the Yorkshire outfit’s six-year absence from the division.